Who’s Chris Partridge? He’s the head football coach at Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey. With much of the focus here yesterday having been on losing Malik McDowell to Michigan State, I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned how close Michigan was to becoming the biggest loser on college football’s National Signing Day. Chris Partridge might’ve saved Michigan from that ignominious fate.

According to an article today in one of the northern New Jersey newspapers, Jabrill Peppers was wavering on his commitment to Michigan as late as Tuesday night. Peppers reportedly said, I guess I got nervous [Tuesday] and started doubting myself. But Coach Partridge spent a lot of time with me and put everything back into perspective. I realized Michigan is the place I wanted to be.http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Jabrill_Peppers_signs_Michigan_letter_of_intent.html

So, thank you, Chris Partridge.

On a side note, there might be reason to root for another one of Jabrill Peppers’ teamamtes, besides Juwann Bushell-Beatty. Alex Beards of Paramus Catholic signed with Slippery Rock!

Someone in this diary is going to get all ancient Greek savvy on me and tell me that Spartans didn't believe there was anything to look forward to in the afterlife ("300 isn't HISTORY, man!"). Or something. I don't care, okay? Good. Now that we got that out of the way, I decided upon a theme of Elysium because it does two things for me, symbolically.

One, it establishes that I respect the toughness and fight that the Spartans give in their game. While I may despise their very existence, only a blind homer (no pun intended - ANCIENT GREEK HIGH FIVE) wouldn't give them credit for being a formidable opponent as of late. To that end, should they die in battle (symbolically, of course), they would have earned an eternity in Elysium for dying in a worthy manner.

That brings me to my second thing that using this symbolism does for me. It establishes that they lose this "battle." They fight hard, but every one of the Spartans perish in my world here. We'll just call it "Thermopylae" for good measure.

Anyway, it's a pretty wallpaper that also has a bloody helmet on it with a spear marking a job well done in the battle by our Wolverines against their worthy (and eternally annoying) younger brothers. I hope you like it. If you don't, just dig up any other number of good MSU wallpapers from the past couple years and use that. Just don't look at the date...As always, constructive criticism and/or ideas for current or future wallpapers is encouraged. After all, even if we do piss off Space Coyote with our lack of playcall commentary acumen, we're all still united in our love of Michigan and our hatred of Sparty. I do this, and every wallpaper I design, for your enjoyment alone, MGoBlog.

Technically 11 plays but I tied two of them so I could squeeze an extra play in.

I had 22 different wins to choose plays from so this was much more difficult than the Indiana version. But as usual, feel free to make fun of my rankings, agree, or choose which plays you would have ranked instead.